REVIEW ESSAY ACROSS CONTINENTS: GENDER AND EDUCATION JEANETTE RHEDDING-JONES Oslo College, Norway
Bjer6n, Gunilla and Elgquist-Saltzmann, Inga, eds (1994) Gender and Education in a Life Perspective: Lessons from Scandinavia. Aldershot: Avebury 107 pp. ISBN 1 85628 846 3 (hardback). US$55.95. Gaskell, Jane and Willinsky, John, eds (1995) Gender In~forms Curriculum: From Enrichment to Transformation. New York: Teachers College Press, 298 pp. ISBN 0 7744 0419 1 (paperback). US$29.95. Here are two edited collections. Nine people wrote for Gender and Education in a Life Perspective, and eighteen for Gender In~forms Curriculum. Dealing with all of these, as a reader, is rather like having too many kids in the classroom. The problem is not justnumbers. Only one of the writers for Gender and Education speaks English as a first language, and they come from five different countries, each with its own linguistic groups. We are not told how the book came to follow the usual/English conventions of what is appropriate as published text for international academic audiences. The complexities of Gender In~forms are not like this, though a read of the introduction, titled 'The politics of the project' (pp. 1-14), uncovers some intriguing subplots. These regard who got to say what in the book, and why colour and sexual preference are written into the body of textsmthis one in particular. The politics of gender, which is what both books problematise, is sometimes extended by Gender In~forms into aspects of postmodsrnity. These include the transparency of the writing and editing processes of the research, and a lack of fixedness on gender alone as a socio-cultural construction. Consequently, there is an occasional opening up of unexpected theoretical fields. At the same time there is practical advice about what to do in classrooms. Gender and Education in a Life Perspective is firmly based in modernity. 1 How could it be otherwise, given its positionings within (English) language, and
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the practicalities of the Nordic research fundings which got it off the ground more than ten years before it at last made it into (English) print? A language that colonises other languages, and makes them write as itself (in English) might have a power that other languages don't, but it cannot take over completely. There remains a desire for reflection of culture, for related linguistic structures, for lines of argument and links to shared reading histories. Direct translations are thus no solution to the fact that only an insider follows the patterns of thinking and established values of a research culture (see Bjerrum Nielsen & Steinfeld 1993). Perhaps this also explains why the chapter writers of Gender In/forms Curriculum have produced such differing styles of writing from each other, and why there are such schisms in what they represent in theory. Here, as explanation and exemplification of curriculum matters, the everyday lives of these writers are sometimes allowed to shine through. But because of the theories they adopted, the lives of the Life Perspective writers have not. I am saying that research trends and related writing develop because of cultural and personal locations. So whilst transdisciplinary theories, engaging narratives, everyday words and personal positionings may occasionally work very well as writing strategies from some locations, they may be neither possible nor desirable from others. Furthermore, contexts where quantitative research methodologies are essential for one's career development may simply dictate the sort of research one 'wants' to produce. The proving of Competence is thus a major factor in who gets to write what. And once we have a recognised competence it is usual to stick with it. This review presents some of the analysis, evaluation and description usual for its genre. Additionally, it essays into the cultural politics of publications from differing geographical, socio-cultural, subjective and linguistic locations. These relate directly to globalisation and power. In the last ten days I have got to hear both Jiirgen Habermas and Paul Ricoeur, each giving his seminar here in Oslo in the language that is mine. So it is not that I am knocking English, just that I am pointing out how it operates, and saying that problems of power are rarely solitary. As with the old British Empire, the English (speakers) are busy colonising, with academia as a new site. For feminists a politics like this is quite familiar. Just substitute 'patriarchal' for 'English' and the old male-dominated school and university systems for 'British Empire', and you'll follow my argument. Hence matters of gender in (school) education, and English in (research in) academia can be seen to relate politically. I am weaving these lines of thought into my introductions to the books under review. In taking up these issues I have been prompted by my reading of Kathleen Rockhill and Patricia Tomic's chapter in Gender In~forms. Asked to write about gender from the point of view of English as a Second Language, they decided
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they'd rather decentre whiteness. Further, they say they find gender a problematic concept, and instead see (hetero)sexism as identifying the nature of the gendered relationships between men and women, and as underpinning social institutions. If we see language, identity, culture and sexuality as inseparable, we may well come to value 'a richness of multiple identities, spawned by the ability to communicate in diverse situations' (p. 214). Thus when we see white women 'mimic the stance of the dominator when in a position of power' (and I'm trying not to do this in the ways I write, research and teach), then we know that it is not gender alone that is the problem. For women and those men whose patterns of study in higher education have been interrupted by parenting, and whose careers have consequently been fragmented, Gender and Education in a Life Perspective provides a positive picture of 'life-lines'. The writers argue that the time away from study and paid work is a benefit to a future society demanding different kinds of competence. They want positions in the work force to take into account the skills that (women in particular) develop whilst away from it. This is not what is happening in these writers' own countries, however. Here the Scandinavian welfare states, often regarded as being at the forefront of democracy and equality between men and women, are shown to have sex-segregated public sectors and work forces. As elsewhere, full-time family time or constantly putting the family first is hardly a plus for one's career, at least presently. Although the book advocates change, the facts of employment, promotions and our own career aspirations continue to work against those of us who stayed home with the babies. How to get the message across to selection committees, and to mothers and child-caring fathers supposedly lacking in career ambitions, remains an unsolved problem. As a dismantling of differences between the public and the private, Gender and Education shows women's changing life patterns interacting with structural and social change. In this way the book works well. Not so clearly articulated are the reasons why women have not achieved equality, nor indeed is the notion of equal positioning queried. Although the book presents and values difference, it stops short of theorising it. In a text aiming simply to present research findings as work towards social change, I find this lack of cutting-edge ~heory quite acceptable. After all, a book is neither an international refereed journal article nor a doctoral dissertation (at least in English-speaking countries). Giving useful information, via a book, is justifiably another ethics, an accountability to a wider audience. Thus Gender and Education presents careful and detailed documentation of career development models, family relations, self-rated abilities, full-time work in relation to numbers of children and generational shifts in women's education.
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What the book also does well is challenge the measurement of women's career potentials and abilities against male benchmarks. Altering the normative standards, so that what previously counted as valuable is questioned, and people previously seen as advantaged are now seen as disadvantaged, is presented as a strategy. Countering male privilege is thus the editors' aim. Providing the rhetoric, however, is not the same as reversing the rules of men's employment advantages, and this is beyond the mandate of these writers, who nonetheless go a long way towards assisting readers to work for change. Whilst the division of domestic and parental labour results in employment and economic advantage, and it still does, books like this one need to be published and made use of. Gender In~forms Curriculum, in contrast, will have an audience that is more directly connected to schooling. Here feminist research is related to the secondary school curriculum (the primary school once again rendered invisible by research). Accordingly, the book divides itself into the recognised curriculum areas, so that readers with one interest only can go straight to what they need to know about. Others can get a general picture of gender reform, at least in Canada and USA, regarding classroom action and informed curriculum. In these ways the book represents an important bridge between feminist theories and working practices, with useful examinations of politics and knowledge as everyday acts. Getting gender onto the school curriculum agenda, however, requires that more teachers take up the issues. From my experiences, the power of any book is limited in this regard, but teachers and teachers-to-be who like to read will find that this one will alter what they decide to do, and what they'll avoid. Structurally, Gender In~forms has a chapter for each curriculum area. There's mathematics, physical education, technology, reading, science, music, social studies, family studies, writing, ESL (English as a Second Language), art, vocational education, and literature. Jane Martin, who's a philosopher, gets to do a general overview. From the index (always an important way for skilled readers with their own agendas to get into a text), postmodernism is linked only to technology, poststructuralism only to feminism, feminist poststructuralism only to ESL and literature. The range of the book is huge. I get to the Preface's description of Chapter 6 and my scribbling pencil works overtime. It's wonderful. Roberta Lamb is doing music brilliantly. I flip to page 109 and read without looking up. It's ear-opening stuff about music. I've waited for this forever, you see. Used to be a performer in a past life, used to play at sight, show off on Steinways. Before the finding of feminist filters, that is, I played the Great Men's Works: a loud unsounding of women. Artistry, research and pedagogy? Women's music, women's time? Roberta Lamb chunks text as image, does ideas as hints, theories as musical motives (Dorian, on a minor second, Lydian, with
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descending tritone, with a major seventh, in unison, in C major, in the Phrygian mode, in Saraswati Raga, on a perfect fourth). Have I lost you? Knowledge is like that. We like what we know, and that's what we want. But who wants and knows a combination of postmodernity, music and curriculum? Who comes from this combination? Who values this work? Who, as a reader, can deconstruct Lamb's text? The numbers of academics in a discipline, and the difference of the disciplines (music is very different) ensure that power goes elsewhere, that the language of a minority (curriculum area) goes unheard. The evaluation of writing, I am trying to show, is always already (to paraphrase Irigaray) done. The reference list determines the result, the fashion dictates the garment, the location the product, the technology the look of the text, and the culture the research. Evaluation, then, is in these ways culturally constructed. And so the work of reviewing becomes, with the genre breakthroughs of postmodernity, and the related shifts in research cultures, a performance revue (see McWilliam 1995). As with Gender and Education, what got Gender In/forms going was a research grant for a number of fairly different researchers to work together on a project deemed worthy of sinking money into. This group of Canadian-American academics began with seemingly straightforward aims about changing sociocultural practices. What can happen in a situation like this, though, is that because we are educated to use words, challenge established ways of thinking and refer to current debates, then our theories and our methodologies take over our projects, and there's not much that ends up being useful for the ordinary reader. Having collected the money to fund the project, get the data, do some theorising and publish something that justifies what we did, may then become suspect. This is not the case with either of the books reviewed here, as both are highly accountable to a range of readers within education and within feminism. Unfortunately, lumping gender and education together often means that (Australian) readers not fervently having both sets of interests will bypass both books. In the Nordic countries, however, Gender and Education has many readers outside usual education circles. This is partly because its writers come from the disciplines of sociology, psychology, anthropology and eqttity politics, and partly because books published here are avidly discussed by an interested and educated public. As different problematisations (one of a politics of gender and curriculum, the other of people's life patterns regarding gendered education), each of these books does more than present its specified focus. I shall spell this out more clearly than my transportations into music may have done. What a book 'says' depends on who reads it, and on what else they are doing at the time. As a multi-positioned reader, and one prepared to focus on gender, I noticed the two Australian women
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(Sue Willis and Joan Eveline) who managed to cross the equator and get their writing into these two Northern Hemisphere texts. I read the bit about the contributors first, checked out their jobs to see who was senior and junior (getting to Professor in North America is a lot easier than in Scandinavia and Australia); noticed who was married to who (of the four men writers in these two books, two are married to the women writers); noticed who I'd heard of before and who I hadn't (signing to myself how I am now located within the field). Next, leaving gender aside and focusing on the start of the texts, I found problems with each of the sub-titles. 'From enrichment to transformation' reads like an ad for a face cream. 'Lessons from Scandinavia' is nominally inaccurate. (Finland is not in Scandinavia. Is this like the Australian CAEs of the eighties getting called Universities in the nineties? Better watch out, Finland!) After I'd read Gender In~forms I saw that its postmodern title (slash between 'forms' and 'in') was really just stuck on at the end of the production process. The sub-title about enrichment was what got it its research funding. Later the radicals complained, and they got to name the book (a trick to woo the postmodern reader, who will be quite disappointed with a lot of it). I was fascinated by the introductory details of how the writers split up into separate camps, and how theories are so closely related to what people have had happen in their lives. Coeditors Jane Gaskell and John Willinsky are brave, and their narratives and theorisations of having shared a textual genesis with so many different writers are timely. This led me to wonder what silences surrounded the production of the socalled Scandinavian text. How did these people manage to write together? How together were they? Who got left out of the text? What discourses lacked representation? How white and heterosexual are Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden? Why was gender seen by itself? Back to the Canadian-American text, which examines curriculum in schools, and which examines the knowledge, practices and politics we are all a part of. Faced with backlashes dismissing feminism as a form of political correctness, and with increased harassment of girls and women in schools, the editors here are highly successful in pointing to the continuing problems. Their proposed changes to curricula include getting gender on the agenda for all 'subject' areas and imagining new forms of knowledge that are shared and built, rather than given. To do this the book relates useful teaching experiences, says what to do in classrooms and made it possible for the contributors to the book to meet each other. Themes running through the book are centre and margin, difference and other, privilege and silence. Not wanting to produce yet another book that teachers in schools write off as critical and scholarly, the editors faced their task honestly. But the teachers I know would rather go to an in-service and do things themselves, or see someone else teaching and then talk about it. In short, the rift
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between those teachers who actively seek their own further education as teachers, through their own reading and writing about knowledge and its politics, and those who do not or cannot, is too great to be bridged by a book. This of course is not the book's fault; and here some further study for that extra qualification may solve the problem. In a way this leads back to the issues taken up by Gender and Education, which unfortunately ignores the field of education for teaching, but which could be used as a means of investigating teacher-learning and teacherliteracy, from a life perspective. An important political strategy of the research underlying Gender and Education was asking the women studied how they imagined their futures. In the case of the collective that produced this research, traditional Northern European viewing of social science data was stood on its head. What Inga ElgquistSaltzmann does is turn patriarchal values upside down and paint what once was central as sky-blue background. At this point of the book we are suddenly confronted by a glossy colour plate, to indicate the transformation. Instead of this particular text's graphing-as-usual we get to see a landscape, with brilliant green hills as signs of (re)productivity at home. Women's time out of paid work for full-time family work becomes construed not as a lack but as a professional plus. And Nordic feminist scholarship refuses to use the pattern of reportage ordained by traditional social science. Gunilla Bjer6n says how this fits with other forms of social science research, and Joan Eveline discusses a feminist politics of knowledge in relation to research methodology. I would hope that Elgquist-Saltzmann's innovations become not another master model for how to do research, but a demonstration that there are other ways of working yet to be imagined. Feminism is not a research methodology; instead it constantly stretches the boundaries of where it is located (see Reinharz 1992), and it is itself a regulating practice. This means that we cannot escape being coerced, more or less temporarily, by one discourse or another (see Yates 1993). Insisting that feminist poststructuralist theories, however, must always supplant the research practices of modernity is yet another example of colonisation. Nevertheless, if we stop seeing (womanhood, in this particular book, as) a series of linear stages, and if we get rid of paradigms ald diagrams and hypotheses, then the world of research turns differently. However, if you are locked into a traditional and modernist discipline (see Kvale 1992), it may be impossible to make the changes you desire--and to change desires. Although Gender and Education challenges its parent discourses, of sociology and psychology, by making feminism central, it says surprisingly little about its own: of pedagogies and didactics. (In Scandinavian and other Northern European languages pedagogik og didaktik are actually semantic reversals of what they are in English, with didactics being the more radical term.
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This is but one example of how English shifts across linguistic bounds, and how a presenter using English may mean something else.) What is the advice from Gende~ln/forms regarding gender-informed curricula? Answers: things could be otherwise regarding gender; advantage and disadvantage must be looked at; a material base counts; social skills need to be put into curriculum; practices involving work should be reflected on; young people must be given the skills to analyse critically; retelling, extending and transforming can happen; what is constituted as curriculum must be queried; political effects must be made known; transformative texts must be constructed. Why? So that the curriculum no longer reflects what men do, so that boys no longer monopolise teacher time and class discussions, so that power relations are made clear, so that curriculum becomes feminist. Jane Gaskell and John Willinsky say they target teachers and what they think. But curriculum changes alone will not be enough. We need also 'institutional change in schools and systems' (Connell 1996, p. 226), because the curriculum issue goes well beyond an individual school. 'Curricula are partly controlled by system authorities, examination and testing boards, textbook publishers, employers' certification demands and entry requirements of colleges'. For new masculinities and presumably new femininities to emerge for teachers as well as for students, we will need to change both pedagogies and the gender division of labour among teachers. This will require 'action at system level, and in teacher training institutions' (p. 226). This puts the spotlight not only onto teachers but onto the gendered practices and positions of lecturers, distance education designers, researchers and policy makers. To link this to a life perspective is to be conscious not only of who these workers are, but where they have come from, where they are going and why.
Note This review of Gender and Education draws on an invited review published in Nora, Nordic
Journal of Women's Studies (Rhedding-Jones 1995), which was written whilst the reviewer was Visiting Fellow at the University of Oslo, Norway, from January to June 1995.
References Bjerrum Nielsen, H. and Steinfeld, T. (1993) Editorial, Nora., Nordic Journal of Women's Studies, vol. 1, no, 1, pp. 1-3. Connell, R. W. (1996) Teaching the boys: New research on masculinity, and gender strategies for schools, Teachers College Record, vol. 98, no. 2, pp. 206-235.
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Kvale, S. (1992) From the archaeology of the psyche to the architecture of cultural landscapes, in S. Kvale ed, Psychology and Postmodernism, Sage, London, pp. 1-16. McWilliam, E. (1995) Authorising arts education: Fehr or Abbs/solution? The Australian Educational Researcher, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 121-124. Reinharz, S. (1992) Feminist Methods in Social Research, Oxford University Press, New York. Rhedding-Jones, J. (1995) Learning and life, Nora, Nordic Journal of Women's Studies, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 11-15. Yates, L. (1993) Feminism and education: Writing in the 90s, in L. Yates ed, Feminism and Education: Melbourne Studies in Education 1993, La Trobe University Press, Melbourne.
